


Drugstore

by somekindofseizure



Series: WTID Supplemental Reading [19]
Category: The Fall (TV 2013), The X-Files
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 17:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15778338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somekindofseizure/pseuds/somekindofseizure
Summary: Anonymous asked: ...has Stella ever seen Jealous Scully?





	Drugstore

Scully loves the drugstores here. It’s like a vacation tucked into a vacation, a high street scavenger hunt for unfamiliar items that do familiar things, rounded caps on things she’s used to being square, silly names on things she’s used to being straightforward, and the name paracetamol on everything else. The galactic-white lighting gets brighter as she moves toward the center of the store, transports her from the tampon aisle to Saturn as she makes her way from ring to ring, absorbing the symmetry like vitamin D. She’s been here every day this week. It is her happy place.

But she is not happy.

It’s Professor something or other, and she and Stella are two inside jokes and five personal historical references into their accidental encounter. She’s had a lucky, lovely day - three lingerie stores, two coffee shops and one laughing fit, plus four aisles worth of a nail file search – all spoiled moments ago by the word “hello” out of Stella’s mouth. Scully was rattled immediately, and now, watching the two play catch up with cocked chins and pregnant pauses, she knows why. That “hello” was in the same voice Stella uses to speak to her.

The introduction Stella grants is a reluctant one and Scully is just as reluctant to accept. She’s sure Stella shares her wish that she’d been dawdling over in the snack aisle when it happened, too far out of earshot to be involved in whatever this is. But she and Stella have been inseparable all day, following each other into dressing rooms, sitting and standing on the train in doubles, like copycat middle schoolers, dusting each other’s collars and stopping each other on street corners when one of them wants to use the light as an excuse to linger, link-armed and light-stepped. This is what she gets, the way the universe punishes her for her happiness, right in the middle of her own Saturnalian fantasy.

She clears her throat, scratches her temple, tosses her hair, does it all again, tries to do it the next time in a different order. She can feel Stella’s discomfort, practically taste the tension, the way she’s trying to move the conversation towards a swift finish, and this only makes her angrier. Not for my benefit, she wants to say. Stay here and flirt all day, far as I care. And the Professor does seem to want to do it all day. She dithers and questions, bats eyelashes and taps her motorcycle helmet – really??? a motorcycle??? – she is persistent in her quest for a conclusion more significant than the looming, peremptory ‘nice seeing you.’ There is something in her past she wishes to undo.

Stella and the Professor (oh, for an opportunity to use the phrase medical doctor) are too preoccupied with one another to notice her, the way she’s studying their body language and their verbal tics, the way she’s taking Stella in from the shiny laminated floor up to her perfectly waved hair. Stella’s standing with her legs spread, wide legged pants casting circles around her feet, one boot turned up on its heel, toe playing with the inside edge of her hem. She nods often, works her tongue around her teeth, digs her fingers into the bottom of her coat pockets like she might be able to tunnel her way out of the store. Smitten, she’s smitten, Scully thinks and blinks hard at herself, licks her lower lip as though to keep from saying it aloud. She has half a mind to get them a room at the hotel next door.

“Maybe we could get a drink sometime, while I’m here,” the woman says finally, doe-eyed and soft-spoken, but here she is bold enough to make prolonged eye contact, she is brave enough to let Scully know this part of the conversation does not include her.

“’Scuse me,” Scully whispers out the side of her mouth, wanting to escape before Stella answers, before she has to fold her arms so tight she suffocates, before her cheeks turn her into a comet flaring through aisle six of this drugstore.

But Stella talks over her, whips a hand tight around Scully’s wrist before she can turn.

“That’d be nice, wouldn’t it, darling?” she says, still looking at the Professor, and Scully nearly chokes on her own saliva as she swallows her smile. 

“Yes,” she manages and Stella lets her fingers melt from Scully’s wrist down into her hand. The Professor’s eyes drop to where their fingers intertwine. 

“Yes, well, nice seeing you,” the Professor finally relents. Scully does feel a twinge of compassion, but she ultimately doesn’t have patience for other people’s second chances at things she was wise enough to say yes to the first time.

They resume their search of the back half of the aisle and Stella pockets their joined hands in her silk-lined coat. Happy place within a happy place. She seems to be getting away with her momentary loss of cool.

“Pretty,” she says.

“Very.”

“The pathologist?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t remember what I was looking for,” Scully mumbles. Her cheeks cool. 

“Emery board. Though you might want to keep them sharp.”

Not going to get away with it after all.

“You know,” Stella continues with a little squeeze of her hand. “In case she’s waiting out back.”


End file.
